Why hackers moved from MacPorts to Homebrew
3 hackers described this switch in public comments. Their words, with links to the originals.
What hackers said about the move
“I reluctantly switched from MacPorts to Homebrew around 2014.”kccqzy, 2026-09-13original comment ↗
“I switched from macports to homebrew a decade ago. I needed the lastest version of a program, and I found homebrew updated formulas faster than macports did”ihuman, 2026-09-13original comment ↗
“I switched from MP to Homebrew over a decade ago.”apothegm, 2026-09-13original comment ↗
Use MacPorts? Get alerted when hackers criticize it.
Tell us the tools in your stack. When hackers start criticizing one of them, or moving to an alternative, you will hear about it first.
MacPorts vs Homebrew
| MacPorts | Homebrew | |
|---|---|---|
| Hackers who recommend | 2 | 6 |
| Hackers who criticize | 3 | 3 |
| Moved away from it | 3 | 3 |
| Moved to it | 2 | 4 |
Counts are distinct hackers in the sampled comments, not market share.
Criticism of MacPorts
No further criticism of MacPorts captured yet.
Praise for Homebrew
“I personally switched from Mise back to Brew. I don't know if it was just my skill issue, but there were too many packages which found Mise to be problematic.”thatxliner, 2026-06-11original comment ↗
“Homebrew (plus brew outdated) covered CLI tools and a subset of apps.”Simplita, 2026-01-03original comment ↗
“For everything else (zoom, slack, vscode, firefox, etc) I use homebrew packages.”perrygeo, 2026-01-02original comment ↗
Other moves from MacPorts
Other moves to Homebrew
- mise → Homebrew (1)